"What's in a name?" California dairy officials are asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "Can yogurt by any other name taste as sweet?"

Forgive the recasting of a line from "Romeo and Juliet," but it exemplifies the complaint Western United Dairymen recently filed with federal regulators, objecting to the use of the word yogurt when applied to products based on soy, rice and other non-dairy products.

"The soy product industry's blatant misuse of the term 'milk' and 'yogurt' as part of a coordinated marketing scheme to deceive consumers must be stopped," dairy officials wrote in their complaint. "The explicit strategy ... is an attempt to fraudulently lure customers to their product as a substitute for wholesome, nutritious milk."

Federal code defines yogurt as a cultured product using cream, milk or skimmed milk, with the addition of vitamins and flavorings optional.

To call a similar product made from soy beans instead of dairy products is simply a fraud, said Michael Marsh, chief executive of Western United, a Modesto-based trade group.

"Under federal standards you cannot call it yogurt; it's not yogurt," he said.

"That's why you can't call horse meat beef; it's not beef," Marsh said, alluding to the current whoopla in Europe over the widespread appearance of horse meat in products labeled as beef.

"It's misleading to consumers," he said.

And, of course, Marsh wants to protect the interests of his dairy-producer members. They include many dairy operators in San Joaquin County, where milk is the No. 1 most valuable farm commodity, worth an estimated $453 million in 2011.

"Unfortunately, it costs the dairy producers, because folks think it has the same nutritional value as milk."

Of course, products with label names such as soy milk, rice milk and almond milk have been on grocery shelves for years. Marsh said the dairy industry has objected to those as well but has gotten little response from the government.

Western United and other industry groups first objected to the misapplication of the word "milk" more than a decade ago.

"We originally complained to the FDA in the first part of 2001 and we did it again in 2003, and the FDA just didn't respond," he said.

An agency spokeswoman did provide a short email response Thursday about the labeling issue.

"FDA's guidance has been that terms such as 'soymilk,' 'almond milk,' etc. do not meet standards to be identified as milk. This is an active issue that FDA continues to address," wrote Theresa Eisenman, from agency offices in Silver Spring, Md.

Despite that claim of action, it's not enough, Marsh said.

"Unfortunately, because of the FDA not enforcing the laws as Congress intended, we're seeing more and more of these beverages show up in the dairy case," he said. "From these other beverages, you're not getting the same nutrition as you do from milk."

Marsh would like to see action such as occurred in an earlier era, restricting the use of the word "butter."

"They're making products like I Can't Believe It's Not Butter for the same reason," he said. "They can't call margarine butter, because it's not butter."

While the government has not effectively acted on the dairy industry's labeling complaints in recent years, Marsh has hope that recent changes in the Obama administration and a renewed emphasis on consumer protection might help his most recent letter trigger some movement.